THUS SPAKE OBAMA

I heard he gave a speech yesterday about a mountain in Kurdistan or something. It put me in mind of The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, but it also recalled this gem from the past.

I particularly like the line: why do bad things happen to good people.

I read the book, long ago, while still in school. I hit a phase after reading Oman, where I read Sienkiewicz and quite a few other ancient books including The Forty Days.

Just think of all the things that have happened throughout recorded history that have been documented and then written about and think how close-minded and obtuse one must be to never ever have considered that history does repeat itself, usually in tragedy. Would everybody who didn't know what was inevitably going to happen in Iraq when we pulled our support out overnight, please raise their hand.

Oh well, it was all written 2500 years ago by Thucydides in his History of the Peloponnesian War. People alive today would be stunned to learn that every single fetish and phobia of theirs was dutifully recorded 400 years before the birth of Christ.

It was a long story documenting the reasons for the Downfall of Athenian Democracy. Reading it does tend to make one cynical. Just saying.